To measure and compare the Canon PowerShot G7’s noise levels we photographed the standard Gretag Macbeth ColorChecker with it and a number of 10 Megapixel rivals at each of their ISO settings.

The crops are taken from the original images and presented here at 100%. To compare typical noise in skies and dark shadows the crops were taken from patches 3 and 24 respectively.

The Canon PowerShot G7 exhibits relatively low noise in the samples below between 80 and 200 ISO, with speckles only really becoming obvious at 400 ISO and above. It’s interesting to compare its approach to image processing and noise reduction compared to the PowerShot A640 though, which shares the same 10 Megapixel sensor.

The PowerShot A640 appears to exhibit slightly higher noise levels, but as explained on the following page, what we’re actually seeing is more a case of slightly lower noise reduction. Compared against the A640, the G7 slightly smears out noise at higher sensitivities, although to be fair you really have to view samples on-screen at 100% to see the difference, and either way, neither camera is in the same league as the heavy-handed noise reduction of the Panasonic FZ50. Also as expected for a DSLR, the Canon EOS 400D / Rebel XTi exhibits the lowest noise of all four 10 Megapixel cameras here.

As always though, it’s crucial to also compare noise levels with real life subjects under outdoor, daylight conditions, so check out next page to see how the PowerShot G7 really performs against the EOS 400D / XTi DSLR.